


Gin Rummy

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gambling, Gen, Noogies, Team as Family, here's the happy version!, hey remember how i said that cards was Supposed to be happy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 15:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16642757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: "Sasha, you should probably stay outside. I know you're not comfortable with authority. Um, Grizzop, do you want to stay with her?" asked Hamid. Sasha's sure they'd been talking about it for a while and she just hadn't noticed. She's pretty tired.Grizzop shrugged. "Yeah, sure," he said, "we can finish that round of blackjack." Sasha squinted at him.She's not going to play blackjack when they get there, she's going to take a nap.





	Gin Rummy

**Author's Note:**

> cards was Tragique so this is Tooth-Rotting. youre all welcome. Working Title: _listen. i love them o.kay_

Sasha wakes up with a goblin on her arm. It's not the weirdest thing she's woken up to—

(Grag waving an eel pie under her nose, shoving it into her face when the smell woke her up.)  
(Half-Faced Trevor putting stamps on her ears to frame her for stealing Porter's collection.)  
(Small children shrieking because Brock put a bit of cabbage on her head and convinced them it was growing out of her brains.)

—but it's certainly not the most familiar thing. They were waiting for Hamid and Azu and Wilde to fix things up. Sasha was told to stay outside because she's "uncomfortable with authority" or however Hamid phrased it. She knows it's because she's terrible at talking. She's alright with it; she didn't really want to go anyway. It's fine.

Grizzop had to stay out because he's most likely to get nitpicky about details (which isn't what you want when you're trying to convince someone all-powerful and no-nonsense you know what you're doing) and because he's least likely to get offended that he's on Sasha-duty. Because. Well, that's kind of what it is, isn't it? Babysitting Sasha, making sure she doesn't run off and start a food riot.

(She hadn't meant to, honest. It was an accident.)

They'd been waiting for a very long time, and Sasha hadn't gotten too much sleep the night before, what with all the walking and talking and boring details they were going over. So, once they got there and Sasha was stuck outside, after fifteen minutes of Grizzop rambling about one thing, and then very rapidly switching to another topic with no clear bridge between them, she had announced that she was tired. Grizzop had said, "Oh! Uh, sorry. I mean, I could just Lay On Hands, that'd get rid of the tiredness. But, I guess, that'd be a bit much for something a nap could solve—"

Sasha had leaned her head back on the fancy wooden bench and let his words turn into garbled white noise. She fell asleep. At some point, Grizzop must have too, and now he's leaned on her right elbow, ears darting back and forth like he's trying to shoo away flies.

She nudges him. He doesn't move. She nudges him again, slightly harder. He nudges back, but it's probably just reflex. Without moving her right side at all, she reaches out and flicks at one of his ears. The ear smacks her shoulder, but his eyes stay closed. "Grizzop," she whispers.

Nothing.

 _"Grizzop,"_ she repeats, slightly louder. 

Still nothing.

She reaches out and tries to take one of the arrows that he owes her, keeping her right side as still as she can so he doesn't wake up. His hand smacks hers away from the quiver. "Hey," he mumbles, "mine."

She smacks his hand. (Revenge.) "No, _mine._ You owe me, remember? I won at blackjack." He blinks at her, and it's weird. He doesn't have pupils, so it used to be hard to tell if he was looking at her. But she's picked some things up. It's got to do with context, mostly. And the squinting. 

Also, there's no one else for him to be looking at, right now. That helps. "No, because I won poker. Mine." Sasha squints at him, calling his bluff. He squints back, red eyes narrowing as he bluffs more. "Also. I need them. Remember that time in Svalbard?" Sasha stops squinting in favour of snickering.

(She's never going to forget that time in Svalbard, mostly because Grizzop is never going to let her.)  
(But he shouldn't have bet all his arrows if he didn't want to lose them.)  
(And technically, it's all Wilde's fault.)

Grizzop's ears flick in annoyance and smack her arm. "Watch your ears," she reminds, snatching the arrow. His hand snakes out and seizes her by the wrist. She looks at the arrow in her hand. She looks at Grizzop. His eyebrows are raised, and his ears are pointed straight up. It's a weird combination of disappointed and amused. Sasha's been on the receiving end of that expression so many times she's lost count. She drops the arrow into his waiting hand. "Sorry," she mutters, "I thought I'd get it that time."

Grizzop sticks the arrow back in his quiver and leans his head back on her arm. "You say that every time." he reminds her. She shrugs. His head bounces. "Oi, stay still, I'm trying to go back to sleep." Sasha reaches over and tweaks his ear. He leans off and squints at her.

She smiles.

He stands up on the bench and sticks a fist in her hair and noogies her. "Hey!" she yelps, batting him off, "Get off!" 

(She's laughing as she says it. She doesn't mean it. Her hair's going to be a rat's nest, and her cheeks are going to hurt from laughter, and she doesn't even care.)

He giggles and continues to tousle her hair. It's almost a shame. Hamid and Wilde had worked _so_ hard on making her presentable.

She shoves him off, and he pulls out the pack of cards that they bet between each other every round. "Poker?" he asks, already shuffling. It doesn't matter what they play. Grizzop will win his arrows back, and then they'll play for the pack of cards, and then they'll play for increasingly stupid things.

(Grizzop once lost a round of guts after he bet her all of the trees in Damascus. He still owes her those trees, and she's not going to forget it.)  
(A few nights back, Sasha lost at 7/27 and had to give Grizzop the contents of Hamid's left pocket. It had been fun because Hamid was awake at the time, sitting right next to her. And even _more_ fun because then they had to figure out _which_ left pocket, because Hamid has, like, five.)

"Nah," she says, "I'm thinking gin rummy." Grizzop groans as he sets the cards up the way they're needed to play a game of gin rummy. Sasha pinches the cards together, so they're even. He always puts them together in a messy stack, and it bothers her. They don't need to be perfect, they just need to be face-up, but she wants them to look at least a little more orderly. 

"You always cheat at gin rummy!"

"I always cheat at _everything,_ mate," she points out.

He flaps a dismissive hand at her and counters, "You're better at cheating at gin rummy than anything else."

"Then you should've set up go fish," says Sasha primly, and Grizzop cackles at their own little in-joke. Sasha looks back to her card. "I almost feel bad about that," she remarks offhandedly. Grizzop smiles and his mouth stretches out nearly to his ears. 

He leans in and whispers, "It _was_ funny though," like it's a conspiracy. Sasha shrugs, pushing down a smile. 

(It _had_ been funny. She's never seen Azu look that confused before or since. It was _amazing._ )

The round of gin rummy starts, and Sasha's going to see how obvious she can make her cheating without getting caught. 

(Grizzop doesn't notice until four rounds in.)  
(It ends up at a draw because she steals all of the arrows she's owed while he's distracted with the game.)

It's some time before the rest of the party comes out and by that point, Grizzop has won back all his arrows, Sasha's won back the deck, and they've both lost the illusion magic that makes them look nice.

**Author's Note:**

> what are they there for? who knows! whats going on? who knows! has grizzop went off, found a stepping stool, come back, and then noogied the hell out of sasha before this fic? Oh You'd _Better_ Believe  
> i'm on tumblr @roswell-the-wrongdoer come show me affection


End file.
